


If Memory Serves

by Ragingstillness



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feels, I hate that I have to add this, Nothing that isn't canon but it still sucks, Sadness, bucketloads of it, but..., rewrite of canon, slight TW for mention of rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-07-12 16:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7113481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragingstillness/pseuds/Ragingstillness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the memory potion had worked and Zelena forgot the man she loved? Would he ever be able to help her come to love him when she no longer even knows him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

    Zelena lifted the glass to her lips. The water went down with a burn, much too forceful to have been all that coated the glass. She looked up to her mother, horror building in her eyes.   
    Her brain was screaming, but no noise came out of her mouth. She could swear the liquid was tangibly moving through her body, seeping into her bloodstream.   
    Her heart beat faster and faster, but she was helpless to assuage its cries as the liquid finally made contact with it. A feeling of intense cold spread over her, as though her heart had become frostbitten. She fought to hold onto the warmth, thoughts of her daughter and her almost lover flitting through her head, then suddenly half of them blinked out of existence.   
    Her chest grew unnaturally cold and tight as its warmth was sucked away. She was losing something irreplaceable and unable to do anything to stop it.   
    She fought to shout, to grab the indescribably something and pull it back, but slowly that razor-sharp clarity of anger fuzzed away to nothing, to a confusion of lost memory and she fainted, falling onto her own arms as they rested on the table.   
    Work done, the other two left, guilt painting only the heart of one.   
    Hades frowned and looked up from where he had been in his book. Someone was using magic in his realm again, a spell had just been enacted, he could feel it. For curiosity’s sake, he waved a hand over the center of the room, waiting for an image of what had transpired to appear.   
    The book clattered violently to the floor and his feet hit the ground as the image of Zelena, seemingly collapsed on her arms, appeared to his eyes. He immediately rushed over, not even bothering to grab his coat.   
    His magic had put him right in her kitchen and he ran forward the minute he landed, running his hands frantically along her back and pressing two fingers to the side of her neck. She had a pulse and was still breathing, a fact for which he thanked whatever force stronger than him had allowed it.   
    Breathing rapidly with worry, he reached over and folded her into his arms, feeling he had to make certain she was still there.   
    Her head fell perfectly into the curve of his neck and shoulder, and through his fear a bit of his heart was glad he could hold her like this. His breath slowly calmed, fluttering several strands of her hair.  
    She stirred mere moments afterward and her head raised to look at him. He reached out for her shoulders and met her eyes.   
    “Are you alright? What happened?”   
    She stared at him blankly.   
    “Zelena are you alright? What happened?”   
    He was beginning to get worried as she continued not to answer until suddenly she shook herself and pulled visibly away from him. She cleared her throat slightly and her eyes swept over the table and the empty glass.   
    “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Maybe I just drunk myself silly.”   
    Hades frowned. It wasn’t like his lady to drink at all, considering what it had done to her adoptive father.   
    He reached out for the glass and she looked at him sharply. He stopped moving towards it.   
    “May I see it?”   
    She frowned slightly but handed it over, almost slapping it into his palm. He brought it towards his face and sniffed it.  
    His eyes slitted and he narrowly avoided the urge to raze the house. It was all starting to make some kind of horrible sense.   
    He turned gradually towards Zelena, not wanting to meet her eyes. When he finally did it was as though his dead heart had been broken open with a pick. She was clearly angry at him, confused, defensive, and most importantly, unable to look at him with any sort of familiarity at all. He unconsciously leaned towards her and flinched as her lip curled and she backed away.   
    “Zelena,” he began, then felt his throat choke up and the next words come out in fragments. “D-do you know who I am?”   
    She scoffed at him, actually rolled her eyes and plucked the glass from his hand, setting it back on the table.   
    “No, I don’t. You’ve somehow ended up in my house without my protection spell going off so you must be powerful but, nope, drawing a blank on a name or anything else.”   
    His body froze. She continued to talk, theorizing, THEORIZING, of all things, who he could be, but the noise became a static filled blur in his ears, as his mind tried to shut out the clarity of her voice so as to spare him the pain.   
    Selective memory potion. That was what the glass smelled of. Very difficult to make, almost impossible to get the raw materials, but frighteningly effective. Regular memory potions could wipe out whole blocks of memory but selective ones were worse because they targeted a single event, a place, a person.   
    She had forgotten him.   
    And as he watched her gesticulating became more and more animated and her smile grew more and more fake; she was becoming the Wicked Witch in front of his eyes, putting up her walls around him of all people, the only one who truly loved her barring her child.   
    Her child. He’d never get to realize the dream of seeing that baby in its mother’s arms, experience the privilege of hearing the little laughs and coos of mother and daughter as they swept around a room.   
    And he’d never get to see those things because he wouldn’t be there, hell, if she got killed down here, he might not be able to save her in time, because now she wouldn’t ever allow him near her again, he could already tell.   
    She was on high alert, having passed out with seemingly no explanation in her house and found a man who had gotten through her protection spell inside. He didn’t even blame her.   
    But the grandstanding, the bluster, the motions he saw her going through killed him, because he had hoped his love would bring her to the state where she’d never use those walls again.   
    His brain tuned back into her one-sided conversation with a clink of the glass on the table. Zelena had picked it up and was examining it, turning it over in her manicured fingers.   
    With a sarcastic toasting motion she mirrored his action and smelled the glass, the same realization that had come over him striking her and her pale blue eyes going almost black with anger.   
    Before he could do anything she had thrown her chair back and pinned him to the fireplace, her hand wrapped around his neck.   
    “What have you done,” she hissed. “What did I forget?”   
    He struggled against her but she was much stronger than she looked, a great deal so, which he suspected having come from years of living under the inability to use magic.   
    “Please,” he gasped. “It wasn’t me.”   
    She leaned in close to his face, closer than she’d ever been before, but livid with anger.   
    “If it wasn’t you, Magic Man, then who was it?”   
    Her voice was higher pitched but cracked like a whip across his face, retaining all the snarling power it backed up.   
    “I don’t know,” he breathed and then she sighed heavily, letting him drop to the floor in a heap. She turned her back on him completely, now confident in her apparent skill over him, unaware that he was simply unwilling to ever use his godly strength or magic on her.   
    He stood up and brushed himself off as best he could then stiffened as she turned back to him.   
    “Who are you Magic Man? Are you what I’ve forgotten?”   
    His heart breathed again but he was careful to not let the hope get out of hand.   
    “I believe so,” he stated. Then, resigning himself to a completely new introduction, swept into a bow.   
    “I am Hades, God of the Dead, Lord of the Underworld.”   
    He looked up at her. She seemed slightly impressed but back on guard now that she knew he was infinitely more powerful than she was.   
    “How do you know me, God of the Dead? You called me by name when the potion wore off.”   
    Hades struggled with this one. It would be so easy to say they were lovers or spouses and claim all of his dreams by simple emphasis of the lie. However, the thought had slunk, unwelcome, into his mind and he almost gave himself whiplash with how fast he shot it down. His supposed vindictive side must be losing its touch.   
    He cleared his throat.   
    “I’m…a friend.”   
    Zelena cocked an eyebrow at him.   
    “Really? I’m friends with the Lord of the Underworld? Do you really expect me to believe that nonsense?”   
   He took a step forward.   
    “But I am! I didn’t break your protection spell, reach out, you’ll feel it. I got in because you have let me in the past. If we weren’t friends that never would have happened.”   
    Zelena pondered this one for a moment. He could almost see the battle in her mind, deciding whether or not to trust him. His logic was sound but he was a powerful being who she had met, once again in strange circumstances, and nothing could be verified.   
    She narrowed her eyes at him and he did his best to look welcoming and innocent. It was a new sensation for him. He could easily drop back into the forthright appearance of overwhelming love he usually took around her but that might be coming on too strong for an already suspicious Zelena.   
    She sighed after what seemed like ages and waved him into a chair. He took a seat, unable to resist the casual power she just bandied around even in her smallest expressions.   
    “I may have forgotten you, but who knows what else I am missing. You’ll have to stay with me for a while.”   
    “Huh?”   
    “If we’re friends then you know me, you’ll catch what I’ll miss. I need you to stay by my side so you can point out what I’ve forgotten.”   
    He could do nothing but nod, a little shell-shocked and kind of disappointed. It felt selfish, but he had hoped the day she’d ask him to live with her would have been one on which she had all of her memories and made the choice out of want, not necessity. At least he’d be near her, even if this was the most exquisite torture he’d ever endured.   
    She sighed and he looked up. Her head had dropped into her hands, fingers digging deep into her scalp.   
    “I need to remember what I’ve forgotten, and for that I need to find out who did this to me.”   
    She looked up at him wryly, but exhaustion ringed her eyes.   
    “Any ideas Magic Man?”   
    His heart broke for her. She was so conflicted on what to do and at the same time lost for anything to do. She wanted her daughter back, but that would come only with time, time she didn’t have in the underworld. Not to mention that if her sister had been the one to do this to her, and it was very likely, she definitely wasn’t getting that child any time soon, or maybe even ever.   
    So he saw her desperation, how she grasped onto whatever she could take, knowing her emotions weren’t equipped to handle the complexity of the situation.   
    “We can trace the potion, find out where it came from.”   
    Zelena shook her head.   
    “I thought you’d be smarter than that. It will only lead us back to the River Lethe, the river of forgetting. All memory potions come from there.”   
    Hades sighed, struck a little. He hadn’t really ever been on the receiving end of a guarded Zelena and it wasn’t pleasant.   
    “While you are correct, in order to make a specified potion the user has to add something of the victim’s to it, like a hair or a fingernail.”   
    Zelena grimaced.   
    “That’s disgusting.”   
    “It is, but I don’t think many people would have had access to you so they probably took a different avenue.”   
    Zelena looked up, a little more interested. She had always been the better student of Rumplestiltskin’s, so eager to learn magic that she ate theory up as quickly she could.   
    “I’m a bit reluctant to say it,” Hades hesitated.   
    Zelena growled at him.   
    “I don’t have time for this, Hades, tell me now.”   
    He tensed a little as she hissed his name, obviously attempting to show how displeased she was.   
    “Blood magic. If the blood magic bond was strong enough, they wouldn’t need something of yours, they could use something of theirs.”   
    “Why didn’t you want to tell me this-…oh.”   
    The realization dawned on Zelena like the shadow of a predator. Her lips curled back and he saw her eyes flash purple, the dark magic feeding off her anger. Her nails scratched shrilly across the table top.   
    “My sister. She did this.”   
    In spite of himself Hades almost cowered. He’d never seen her this angry, not even when she thought he was going to hurt her child.   
    He decided immediately he didn’t like it. Even with the darkness of his heart and how he loved to see her best the people around her, this burning fire that sparked from utter betrayal was painful to watch.   
   She was so raw, so ripped to shreds in that moment that she was simultaneously as frail as a new butterfly and as strong as stone. The duality had never been clearer to him and he understood now how her brief terrorism of Storybrooke had brought equal parts strong dissent and helpless fear.   
    She was quiet for a moment then her lips moved around a single phrase.   
    “I’ll kill her.”

**Author’s note: Super sorry to BetYouCan’tFindMe for being a bit late with this one. This is just the first chapter and I am also sorry to say I will probably be updating rather sporadically. In my Zades fever, I have flung myself into several multi-chaps that will take a lot of work. Thank you for your patience, go Zades, please R &R.**

**P.S. You asked for angst and I have delivered. Mwahahahahahahaha.**


	2. Chapter Two

    Hades' immediate response was to encourage her. This he didn't do, and instead defaulted to grabbing her arm as she made to take off. 

    "Please, we don't know it was your sister for sure. Blood magic is just a theory. And we need to be sure. Both of you have more to lose than ever in this fight." 

    His words barely penetrated her veneer of fury, only even getting to her ears through his grip on her wrist. She spun on him, teeth bared and a wildly vengeful look in her eyes. 

    "We can't do nothing if that's what you're suggesting. As for what we have to lose, I only have my daughter and she's in the hands of my treacherous sister, perhaps in danger even as we speak." 

    Hades scoffed. 

    "Oh please, your sister wouldn't do a thing to the child of her true love, even if you are her mother." 

    Zelena’s arm shot forward and he flinched, but her hand just slammed against the back of his chair. She leaned in close to his face and instantly he became hopelessly lost in her eyes. They were sparkling, a contrast to the hardened fury of before, and also shaking slightly. Her entire body was trembling, but her muscles were taut and violent as she responded to his off-hand statement. 

    "Are you so sure about that? My sister has slaughtered entire villages out of displeasure, broken marriages, massacred whole bloodlines. Yet somehow, she wears and simultaneously shields her vulnerability in a way that allows people to forgive her. Despite all that she's done, she has been forgiven by everyone but me. That kind of darkness, the willingness to kill men, women, children, babies, doesn't just go away. It simmers and festers... That isn't to say she is too weak to keep it down for the rest of her life if she wanted to, but if she doesn’t want to, anyone’s belief in her goodness no longer matters." 

    Hades saw it then, past the displeased and indignant child the heroes seemed to see the woman in front of him as. Zelena knew exactly what her sister was and while she coveted the things her sister had, she did not covet the experiences nor the guilt. Hades wondered if Regina understood how well the one person who had hated her most knew her. 

    It was a little known fact, but every soul who arrived in the Underworld had their memories sent to the mind of its ruler upon stepping off the boat. Hades often found it overwhelming, especially when the souls came en masse from massacres so he stored them away in compartments of his underground home. 

    However, when the heroes had come, he read through theirs shamelessly the minute they entered the Underworld. No one was exempt from this rule of the realm. Hades had even managed to get the Dark One's memories. 

    It was these memories he recalled now, from the days Rumple had been imprisoned by Zelena to the moment outside of the hospital where he confirmed Robin’s fatal words. "Zelena's no fool." 

    And indeed she wasn't. She was, in fact, an incredibly discerning judge of character as well as a skilled planner. It was these qualities that also made her so very stubborn. It would be difficult to change her mind once she made it. Luckily he had a couple of years of wisdom under his belt to pull from. 

    "Then for your daughter's sake it may be better to avoid antagonizing Regina until you're in a situation to subdue her." 

    "But what if she's hurting my baby now? I can't just afford to wait, she's all I have to lose." 

    Hades couldn't deny he was growing as scared as Zelena was. He had total control over his realm, but that really only extended to dead souls. Live ones required him to use the usual avenues of magic, just like everyone else. Except, obviously, with much greater power and knowledge than the average witch or wizard. 

    Zelena made to leave again but he pulled her back lightly. Her eyes were aflame as she waited for what possible reason he could give her. 

    The arguments rose in his throat: Robin would stop Regina, maybe Regina didn’t hate Zelena anymore, and Regina could never get the child away from Robin anyway. 

    But even his tiny spark of optimism saw these reasons as much too weak and Zelena’s eyes swirled with the counterarguments: Robin has no magic, Regina has plenty of reasons to hate Zelena, and Regina’s emotional hold over Robin was absolutely complete. 

    Hades’ shoulders sunk. He had run all out of logic so he gave up to his last resort. 

    "What about yourself? You still have your own life to lose." 

    Zelena shook her head and almost laughed. 

    "My life doesn't matter, I have to think of my daughter!" 

    Hades stood up violently, the chair clattering down behind him. He yanked her close. 

    "NO! Self sacrifice only makes sense up until a point. You can't just devalue your life like that! Sometimes you have to realize your worth to save someone else. You can put yourself first to act in someone else’s best interest." 

    “So what? My mother had the right to leave me?" 

    Hades growled. 

    "No, absolutely not, but the two situations are completely different. She had the chance to raise you but gave it up for personal gain. You can't raise your daughter if you're dead!" 

    He sighed and his head dropped to his chest. After a moment he looked up and met her eyes. 

    "You are not your mother." 

    Zelena's eyes dropped to the floor for a moment. He released her arm and she let it drop. A blanket of silence enveloped them. She sighed into it then ran a hand through her long red hair, curls cascading lazily through her fingers. 

    Then after a pause she spun on her heel to face Hades. The next words seemed to come out with difficulty despite their cheerful tone. 

    "How would you like to accompany me to ask my sister if she has anything to do with my lost memories?" 

    He smirked. 

    "Very much so." 

    She moved to the door but he reached forward and pulled it open for her. Instead of thanking him she scoffed but did take his arm when he offered it outside. They both turned in a quick quarter circle, then turquoise magic whooshed them away to Snow's apartment. 

    The person in question actually happened to be there, along with her husband and son. Charming immediate rushed forward to protect his wife but Zelena's eyes were not on her, too busy combing the room for her sister. Upon finding she wasn't there, Zelena blew out hard through her lips and made to move away. 

    Hades pulled her back a bit, whispering, "if we don't threaten them, they may tell us where she is." 

    Zelena looked down hard at his hand wrapped around her wrist and he made to remove it, but she relaxed into his grip so he let her be. They both met the heroes' eyes. Zelena raised her hands. 

    "We're not here to harm you, so you can back off little prince." 

    Charming accepted the nickname with surprising grace but not as much the statement. He remained in front of his wife, something Hades had to give him reluctant respect for. 

    "What do you want?" 

    Hades chuckled and stepped in. 

    “So to the point, your highness. Very well. We would love to be just on our merry way but we have something to discuss with Regina first. If you'd just tell us where she is..." 

    Snow's eyes narrowed behind Charming's arm. 

    "Never. Whatever you two have planned for Regina couldn't be good." 

    Zelena was about to snarl in response when Hades suddenly sighed deeply and stepped forward. He locked eyes with Snow, his expression unspeakably grave. 

    "I assume you, what we need to tell Regina is very important and comes at absolutely no risk to her." 

    Snow frowned.

    "What could be that valuable?" 

    Hades sighed again and using his grip on Zelena drew her up next to him. 

    "It's a matter of the heart," he said solemnly. 

    Zelena barely managed to avoid looking scandalized for a moment, which felt like a stab in the chest, but she was quite the actress and quickly moved closer to grip fully onto his arm. He saw her lower her head out of the corner of his eye and...was she actually blushing? She was good. 

    He didn't want to underestimate Snow though. The woman was a warrior behind her idealistic nature so he never knew which side would come out to play. Or maybe he would be lucky enough to meet a hint of the righteous evil she had once exhibited in stealing a newborn from its mother. His mind recoiled from the fact. It was unnecessarily heartless, and that came from him. 

    But apparently the warrior was sleeping for the day and Snow immediately nodded as if that vague response had conveyed actual meaning. Charming looked back at his wife but she set a hand in his shoulder and pushed in front of him. 

    She stared straight into Hades’ eyes for a moment. He didn’t even have a second to put on an expression of love before she gave another nod and, shockingly, smiled at him. 

    “It’s OK David, we can tell him.” 

    Charming almost retorted but the endorsement of his wife was enough to convince him. He gave up with a visible drop of his shoulders and a running of his hand through his hair. Snow passed her child off to her husband, probably to distract him, and stood before the power couple, hands clasped in front of her. 

    “Regina is probably at the library right now. I won’t tell you why but if you intend to ask her something that won’t cause her harm, I think our disagreements can be set aside for an hour or two.” 

    Hades chuckled lightly. 

    “Indeed. In return for your unexpected, or really completely expected, kindness, I will grant you one in return. For two hours your little group can try your very best to get yourselves out of the Underworld and I won’t stop you. No sending people after you, no freak monster attacks, and no interference.” 

    Snow blinked. 

    “Really?” 

    Hades laughed fully this time. 

    “I mean, it’s not as if I expect you to succeed but for these two hours, yes, have as much fun as you want.” 

    He inclined his head to Snow, then with a spin on his heel he and Zelena were standing on the street outside of the library.

    The minute they were out of the apartment she tugged roughly away from his arm. She spun on him, her eyes blazing but her cheeks ever so slightly flushed. 

    “What was that? We said we were going to find out where Regina is, not convince the Heroes we’re going to get married! Also, I thought we were just friends. Why did Snow believe us so easily?” 

    Hades floundered for an answer. 

    “No. Don’t speak. There’s something you’re still hiding from me too! I should have known better to trust a man who broke into my house.” 

    She laughed, her voice awfully thin and dry. 

    “Go back to wherever you came from. I’m going to talk to my sister alone.” 

    For a moment Hades’ memory superimposed a verdant layer over her skin as he recalled her similar words to him, the first time she shoved his heart away. 

    Her feet approached the threshold of the library double doors but he caught her arm again. She pulled away and set her back against the wood, glaring up at him.

    “Can’t keep your hands off me, can you?” 

    In any other context it would have been flirty but she shot the line at him like an insult. 

    “No,” he answered truthfully. That threw her for a bit and her crossed arms loosened. 

    “You’re right. I know. Of course you’re right. I am keeping something from you. But not with the intent to hurt you. That I can promise.” 

    She flung her arms to her sides and got right up in his face. 

    “Then what is it? If you don’t tell me, I’m going in on my own and you’re going home, Magic Man.” 

    He didn’t bother to correct her refusal to use his name, too busy deciding whether or not to tell her. And what even was there to tell? I’m in love with you sounded strange and I hope you’re in love with me sounded both desperate and unfairly assumptive. 

    “Hmm?” She prompted him, and he couldn’t keep it from her any longer. 

    He opened his mouth to talk, but no words came out so he just stared at her, captured, as he would forever be, by everything about her. She met his eyes clearly then her lips parted and that flush he had seen on her cheeks grew, dusting up to the adorable tips of her ears. 

    “Oh,” she whispered, the syllable falling unbidden from her lips. Her fingertips went up to her mouth then she spun around, waving her hand quickly over the door to the library and walking in.

**Author’s note:**

**Yeah, I’m not letting Regina and the Charmings off on their crimes. Also, super sorry for anyone who’s been wondering why I haven’t updated for weeks. This little hiatus was because I had gone on a trip halfway across the world. I hope you’ll forgive me. I am trying my best to make this as painfully angsty as possible, please let me know if I did well. Thanks for reading.**


	3. Chapter Three

Song listened to while writing: Call me when you’re sober by Evanescence   
(Just in case you guys wanted to know, or get into the mood while reading)

    The inside of the Underworld library was one of the few features of the town Hades had changed for himself. The books were still there although one might find that while the titles were indeed in the library, the content was completely mixed up, the story that matched the title probably hidden in another row. Hades had taken personal pride in that petty act. It annoyed the souls in his domain, and kept them from finding the novels on Greek Mythology he had put there in a strange burst of masochism.   
    The door to the basement, however, was glamoured and covered in magic runes most unlike the simple spells Regina had put on her own in Storybrooke. A breeze whistled through the stacks as well, courtesy of the broken and open ceiling, where Hades had torn the top of the building off and thrown it into the street. He had done it the day Rumple had stabbed Zelena in her cell.   
    Only a last minute spell on Zelena’s part had saved her, creating a facsimile and turning her own body into smoke.   
    (A/N: I’m giving Zelena’s death a real explanation, because the one the show gave was awfully cocksure for a group of writers who have already lost themselves in the forest of plot holes)   
    And the timing had to be perfect. All spells on a dead person broke the moment they died. The spell that had tethered Zelena’s magic to her pendant had been one of those spells.   
    The only reason Zelena’s spell had worked was thanks to the research Zelena had done on the dagger while it had been in her possession. Contrary to Rumple’s assumptions, she hadn’t just walked around basking in its power. In fact, she hadn’t even kept it on her when she could avoid it. Such dark magic would have corrupted her beyond reason.   
    In her research Zelena had found a faint aura of dark magic that spread out from the dagger. It was this, but not the blade, that pierced Zelena’s aura in the moment she performed the spell. The touch was enough to trick the _laws of the very universe_ that she was about to die and break all of the spells on her body. The blade of the dagger itself, that would have killed Zelena, stabbed the facsimile.   
    Hades looked ahead at his love. He doubted she realized how unbelievable that spell had been. It was just another day working magic she didn’t understand for Zelena Mills.   
    Despite the situation, Hades smiled. That wasn’t even mentioning the time travel spell, and the previously indecipherable runes that Zelena had put her mind to reading in order to complete the spell.   
    Hades shook his head. She was the greatest witch of her time. It was just a fact.   
    Maleficent had tales of her dragon form, Cruella had gifts from the Author himself, Ursula was a sea goddess, Cora was thrown into an unknown realm only to rule it, and everyone knew tales of Regina’s cruelty and reign. But Zelena, the innocuous Wicked Witch of the West, who wasn’t acknowledged in her own realm or outside of it, she was greater than them all because she was the only one with the drive to learn more. To expand her power and to never place limits on magic.   
    She hadn’t been taught about the glass ceiling, so the crushed glass she stepped on on her way to the top just looked like the threshold of the next staircase. She was glorious, she was inventive, she was magnificent, she was…looking at him weirdly and asking him something.   
    Hades turned his ears back on.   
    “-you ok?”   
    He shook himself.   
    “Yes I’m fine. Do you think Regina is still here?”   
    Zelena waved her hand and a line of green magic swept itself over the ceiling and the floor, down the aisles.   
    “She’s here. Somewhere in the back.”   
    They strode forward together, black coats billowing. Zelena spotted Regina standing at a desk, flipping through a book. Regina looked up as they approached, fear flickering into her eyes at the answering fury in Zelena’s.   
    Zelena approached her sister and slapped the book out of her hand. Before it even hit the ground Zelena’s hands were fisted in Regina’s shirt, drawing her up to the couple extra inches to make them face to face.   
     “Where is my daughter?!” Zelena demanded.   
    Regina swallowed hard.   
    “Why should I tell you?”   
    Zelena scoffed and shook her hair from her eyes.   
    “Gee, I don’t know, Regina. You brewed a selective memory potion that you then served to your cooperative sister. How am I supposed to fathom what you’re capable of?”   
    Regina looked shocked for a moment then her walls came back up with a furtive glance at Hades and she shook herself from her sister’s hands.   
    “Your daughter is safe. As for the memory potion, not to worry. It wasn’t anything you’d miss.”   
    Hades almost grabbed her himself for that. Thankfully Zelena channeled his rage pretty effectively.   
    “How dare you make that decision for me! You do not get to hide behind the hero excuse of a ‘greater good’ anymore. You are the Evil Queen, Daughter of the Queen of Hearts, and I. Know. You.” She swung an arm out and pointed at Hades. “Why did you make me forget him?”   
    “H-he’s not who you think he is,” Regina sputtered. Zelena snorted.   
    “Who? The God of the Dead? Big deal. You don’t get to control me!”   
    Regina straightened up.   
    “I know what’s best for you Zelena. You’re too busy right now to deal with him. And also, you don’t have the greatest track record with good decisions.”   
    Hades swore he saw Zelena’s eyes flash purple again.   
    “What a disgusting double standard sis.” Zelena swallowed hard then towered over her sister. “I’ve done unforgivable things. I admit them. I’ll pay my dues when I end up here to stay. But you can’t claim the moral high ground here.”   
    Regina’s hands began to spark with magic. Then she spat the most poisonous facet of their reality into Zelena’s face.   
    “You slept with Robin against his will!”   
    “I did. And so did you with Graham.”   
    Regina reeled back.   
    “Didn’t think I knew about that did you? It’s amazing how easily this town has just dismissed your 28 year run of using the man as a sex slave. Neither of us are saints. At least I own my actions and am willing to pay the consequences.”   
    Regina gritted her teeth.   
    “I _have_ paid the consequences. Years of torment, until I finally saw the truth.”   
    “What truth?” Zelena spat.   
    “That evil doesn’t win. That good should triumph and that I will always fall to myself if I don’t try to be good.”   
    To Hades’ surprise, Zelena’s face relaxed completely and she nodded.   
    “Agreed.”   
    Then in a second her hatred was back.   
    “But here’s where you’ve messed up, sis. You took your so-called emotional torment out on others, deliberately. You knew better and you still fell to your evil. It’s perfectly fine to be good, in fact, God forbid you return to your roots, but you don’t get to forget them.”   
    “You tormented people too.”   
    Zelena nodded, but her rage didn’t abate.   
    “I did. I have sent several people here myself. Innocent citizens who stood up to me and people who were victims of my lack of control over my magic. But Regina, darling, I have to say, I never sunk to your depravity.”   
    Regina scoffed.   
    “You’re just talking in circles. We begin equal but now you’re better than me?”   
    “In this respect I am.”   
    “What respect?” Regina spat. Zelena lowered her head to her chest.   
    “Children. Regina, you killed children. You burned whole villages to make a point to Snow White, to blame her for a fault that fully lies with our mother.”   
    Regina was stunned into silence. Zelena continued, horror draining anger from her words. Somehow it didn’t make the mood any better.   
    “I admire you, I really do, for choosing to be good. But that doesn’t make your mistakes go away. You don’t have to punish yourself for them. Learn to live with them instead.” Zelena’s head rose and she locked gazes with her sister. “And it is for this reason that you don’t get to think you can make my decisions for me. Ever since I woke up an amnesiac, this man has been nothing but kind to me. Maybe he’s still dangerous or I shouldn’t trust him, but that’s something you have to let me make the call on.”   
    Regina shook her head and stray tears deviated in their tracks down her face.   
    “But he’s threatening my family. And you were supporting him.”   
    Zelena smiled. “Then make me your enemy.”   
    That simple assertion froze Regina’s response. Zelena continued.   
    “If trusting him is a mistake, let me suffer for it.”   
    Regina’s fists clenched. “Your daughter is in danger from your decisions. You aren’t going to punish her for your own mistakes are you?”   
    “Absolutely not. The child should never suffer the faults of the parent.” Hades sensed this was an idea Zelena had come to in her own life. “And that’s why she isn’t with me right now. I gave her to Robin. That much I do remember. Although, not why.”   
    Regina sighed and her fists unclenched. She met her sister’s eyes, heedless of the tears still rolling down her cheeks. She started then cleared her throat to mask her damaged voice.   
    “I understand. If it makes you feel any better, I wasn’t the one who made you forget Hades. That was our mother.”   
    Zelena’s hand flew to her face. “Oh dear. I forgot, she’s down here isn’t she? Damn blood magic works up the generations too.”   
    Regina turned back to her stack of books. “I can’t tell you why you had to forget him, it’s still too dangerous. You’ll have to find that out yourself.”   
    Hades expected Zelena to protest but instead she just smiled weakly at her sister’s back. “I’ll ask mother then.”   
    Regina nodded. “It’s about time you spoke to her anyway.”   
    Zelena spun on her heel, beckoning Hades out the door. He followed, still a little shell-shocked from the miserable shouting match he’d just witnessed. He felt none of the disgust the heroes would have about the atrocities committed, only because he’d done plenty of terrible things himself. But once again he was amazed at the dynamic that existed between the two broken women.   
    He looked ahead, at the stiff back of the woman in front of him. How did she get so wise? She was striding headlong into her own doom, with full knowledge that her torment in hell would be unbearable. Yet she was still determined to live her life the way she wanted to.   
    It was insanity. Insanity and courage. He’d never felt so young in his life.   
    He was a couple millennia old, yet this fifty something woman, trapped in the body of a twenty year-old, knew more about fulfillment that he’d come upon in all of those years.   
    He’d loved her before, admired her skill, but now he was faced with an entirely new feeling. He _respected_ his love's determination if not her decisions. She didn’t see it, but he smiled, and rushed forward a bit to fall into step beside her. He hoped they were staring at the same point in the distance. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s note: 
> 
> They have a lot of issues. I hate show canon, and like to pretend that Zelena didn’t even sleep with Robin in most of my stories because I consider it out of character and dumb. This is the first time I’ve had her own up to it, I hope I didn’t offend anyone and still made it clear how much I don’t approve of it at all and am physically and emotionally disgusted by it. This chapter is kind of short but it’s very content heavy so I hope the next one will have more action and perhaps creeping hints of fluff. Plenty of time for Hades to try and get Zelena to remember on her own before they find Cora. Who knows? This chapter is also finally me getting all of my issues with Regina out in the open. Thanks for reading, please R&R, comment, or kudo. 
> 
> -Ragingstillness
> 
> P.S. Come give me feedback on my story on tumblr too at ragingstillness.


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